“I think I’ve gotten everything I wanted at work. I got it in kind of a strange way—kind of a bad way, maybe. I just pushed my way in. But still, I won. I’m in.”
“Yay?”
“It should be ‘yay,’ yeah. So why isn’tit?”
She reached for another gift. “That’s a really interesting question. What doyouthink the answer is?”
He snorted and took a sip of scotch. Before he could come up with anything more useful thanI’ve been missing Ben for the last fifteen years and now that I’m actually seeing him again I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to walk away, the front door opened and Seth came in, a somewhatbedraggled toddler in his arms.
“Tamara, can you say hi to Liam?” Seth prompted. “You remember him from the other day, right?”
Tamara raised an eyebrow and looked Liam up and down. “Raspberries,” she finally said. Then her gaze fell on the presents, and her body tensed with electric interest.
“They’re boring, sweetie,” Dinah said quickly. “But if you want to come help unwrap them, that’d begreat. They’re things to help us get ready for your new brother or sister.”
And that was the end of the soul-exposing portion of the evening. Probably a good thing, really. Liam ended up in the backyard with Seth, drinking beer while wrestling with some raspberry sprouts that had survived the earlier apocalypse, and they were fine together, friendly enough and working in companionable silence.But there was no invitation to deeper conversation, and that was okay; it was fair. Seth was Ben’s.
Of course, Dinah was Ben’s too, according to any metric that made sense.
Nobody in North Falls was Liam’s. Possibly nobody anywhere.
But what the hell was he getting worked up about? An old boyfriend who didn’t want him back? Big deal. He was Liam Marshall, up-and-coming New York City architectand man-about-town. His career was soaring, he had no shortage of interest from men who were, by any objective standard, way the hell more eligible than some small-town schoolteacher carrying a grudge about something that had happened a decade and a half ago. Liam was fine. He was good. Great, even.
By any objective standard.
By a subjective standard? By hisownstandard?
Well. He didn’t thinkhe should start thinking about that. Not until he was safely at home, or at least in a guest bedroom where nobody would stare at him if the damn tears came back again.
